George Fisk Comfort

Who was George Fisk Comfort?

George Fisk Comfort was a 19th-century American scholar and art exponent, and founder of both the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, and Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY.

Comfort was born in Berkshire, New York. He graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT with an A.B. degree in 1857 and an A.M. degree in 1860. After completing his studies at Wesleyan, he traveled to Europe to study art history and archaeology where he stayed until 1865. In Berlin, Comfort was influenced by meetings and studies with the philosopher Friedrich Kaulbach, Carl Richard Lepsius, Gemäldegalerie director Gustav Waagen, Leopold von Ranke, among others. From 1865 to 1868, he served as professor of languages at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Comfort helped found the American Philological Association whose first meeting he organized in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1869. In the same year, he was also a prime mover in New York City for the foundation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The following year Comfort published his Art Museums in America, a book outlining his vision for museums and museum education in the United States.